There are a lot of ways for bands to celebrate their 10th anniversary.

Miss May I is doing it with new music.

This spring the heavy metal band from Troy, Ohio, released its sixth studio album, “Shadows Inside,” capping a first decades that’s included some Top 10 predecessors (“At Heart,” “Rise of the Lion” and “Deathless”) as well as songs featured in “Saw VI” and the video game “Saints Row: The Third.” Frontman Levi Benton now says it’s time for Miss May I to get both better -- and bigger.

• Benton, 26, says the band had an explicit goal for what it wanted to achieve, conically, on “Shadows Inside. “We really wanted to go above and beyond for a bigger sound and a bigger perception of a record and do a record that would put us in that headlining spotlight,” he explains by phone from Chicago. “It’s not that we didn’t try that in the past, but this time we made it a point to do something that turns heads and really feels memorial, and we pushed ourselves to do that. It’s the most ambitious album we’ve had -- especially for a metal band.”

• Miss May I was prolific in entering the new album process. “We had 26 songs and then down to eight and then up to 10,” Benton recalls. “We actually had less than we needed for a second, then we wrote two fresh ones in the studio. It was pretty crazy, but all that work really made the record better.”

• Benton and his bandmates are pleased that Miss May I’s audience is reacting well to the new material -- especially the more ambitious song. “The reaction is so weird, completely not what we thought it would be,” Benton says. “Some of the songs are so different...and those are everyone’s favorites. Everyone’s favorite songs are not the typical Miss May I songs, which is cool. It’s what every band wants to shoot for -- not that I don’t like the other ones, but these are the ones (people) are talking about, which is cool.”